German Press Agency DPA; and the newspapers ABC (Spain), Hoy (Ecuador), La República (Uruguay), El Diario (Bolivia), Presencia (Bolivia) and La Razón (Bolivia) Ana Maria Romero also maintained an active guild participation. The first woman to preside over the Association of Journalists, she also founded and led the Circle of Women Journalists. During her tenure (1988-1990), the organization established the National Journalism Award. She was later elected President of the National Press Association. She also acted as Secretary General of the Latin American Catholic Press Association (UCLAP), was Member of the Permanent Council of International Catholic Union of the Press (UCIP) and Vice President of the International Federation of Newspapers. Ombudswoman and Human Rights In 1998 she was appointed by the Bolivian National Congress as the country's first Defensor del Pueblo (an office broadly translating its intent into English as “Human Rights Ombudsman”), after being nominated by the major news organizations in the country and receiving more than two-thirds of the election votes at the National Congress. Her ideals of freedom and inclusion, along with her purposeful defense of universal human rights, were rapidly taken up during a tenure that made history for making visible sectors that had been historically marginalized within Bolivian society. Also, her position acquired great public importance by giving the Ombudsman Office a role of mediator in many of the social and political conflicts facing the country. As Ombudswoman she denounced the violations against human rights that were taking place in the Chapare region as a result of the clashes between security forces and coca growers. Similarly, she worked against human traffic networks and in favor of discriminated groups, such as domestic workers, renal patients, AIDS victims, prisoners, and indigenous workers, among many others. She elicited public respect for her dedication to her work, accompanied by a moderate use of her public voice, always taking care to choose the most appropriate tone to issue warnings, claims and judgments. Having become a respected figure who was at the same time feared by the political spectrum, her continuation as Ombudswoman began to be questioned by a sector of the ruling party, the Movimiento Nacionalista Revolucionario (MNR), and their representation in Congress. In September 2003, President Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada refused to re-elect Ana Maria Romero into office and ordered the bench of the MNR to block the vote in her favor in Congress. This provoked a confrontation with